Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [322]
His feet slowed to a halt in the hospital corridor outside the Prime Minister's guarded room, and he stood in indecisive misery. The Countess glanced back, and stopped. "Yes?"
"I . . . really don't want to go in there."
She frowned thoughtfully. "I won't force you. But I'll predict you a prediction."
"Say on, oh seeress."
"You will never regret having done so. But you may deeply regret not having done so."
Mark digested that. "All right," he said faintly, and followed her.
They tiptoed in quietly on the deep carpeting. The drapes were open on a wide view of the Vorbarr Sultana city-scape, sweeping down to the ancient buildings and the river that bisected the capital's heart. It was a cloudy, chilly, rainy afternoon, and gray and white mists swirled around the tops of the highest modern towers. The Count's face was turned to the silver light. He looked abstracted, bored, and ill, his face puffy and greenish, only partly a reflection of the light and the green uniform pajamas that reminded all forcibly of his patient-status. He was peppered with monitor pads, and had an oxygen tube to his nostrils.
"Ah." His head turned at their entry, and he smiled. He keyed up a light at his bedside, which cast a warmer pool of illumination that nonetheless failed to improve his color. "Dear Captain. Mark." The Countess bent to his bedside, and they exchanged a longer-than-formal kiss. The Countess swung herself up on the end of his bed and perched there cross-legged, arranging her long skirt. Casually, she began to rub his bare feet, and he sighed contentedly.
Mark advanced to about a meter distance. "Good afternoon, sir. How are you feeling?"
"Hell of a deal, when you can't kiss your own wife without running out of breath," he complained. He lay back, panting heavily.
"They let me into the lab to see your new heart," the Countess commented. "It's chicken-heart sized already, and beating away cheerfully in its little vat."
The Count laughed weakly. "How grotesque."
"I thought it was cute."
"You would."
"If you really want grotesque, consider what you want to do with the old one, after," the Countess advised with a wicked grin. "The opportunities for tasteless jokes are almost irresistible."
"The mind reels," murmured the Count. He glanced up at Mark, still smiling.
Mark took a breath. "Lady Cordelia has explained to you what I intend to do, hasn't she, sir?"
"Mm." The Count's smile faded. "Yes. Watch out for your back. Nasty place, Jackson's Whole."
"Yes, I . . . know."
"So you do." He turned his head to stare out the gray window. "I wish I could send Bothari with you."
The Countess looked startled. Mark could read her thought right off her face, Has he forgotten Bothari is dead? But she was afraid to ask. She pasted a brighter smile on her mouth instead.
"I'm taking Bothari-Jesek, sir."
"History repeats itself." He struggled to sit up on one elbow, and added sternly, "It had better not, boy, y'hear?" He relaxed back into his pillows before the Countess could respond and make him. Her face lost its tension; he was clearly a little fogged, but he wasn't so far out of it as to have forgotten his armsman's violent death. "Elena's smarter than her father was, I'll give her that," he sighed. The Countess finished with his feet.
He lay back, brows drawn down, apparently struggling to think of more useful advice. "I once thought—I only found this out when I grew old, understand—that there is no more terrible fate than to become the mentor. To be able to tell how, yet not to do. To send your protégé out, all bright and beautiful, to stand your fire . . . I think I've found a worse fate. To send your student out knowing damn well you haven't had a chance to teach enough. . . . Be smart, boy. Duck fast. Don't sell yourself to your enemy in advance, in your mind. You can only be defeated here." He touched his hands to his temples.
"I don't even know who the enemy